First Baptist Church
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(The First Baptist Church in Dallas) Organized 1868; first building (1871) on this site was one-room frame structure, which members financed by weaving rugs, making hominy, preserves, and cheese to sell at fairs near Dallas, then a frontier town of 2,500. Section of Victorian-style, red brick building was erected 1890; is only downtown Dallas Church still on original site. George W. Truett, noted minister, was pastor here 47 years and was succeeded by W. A. Criswell, 1944. RTHL - 1968
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The First Baptist Church of Dallas organized in 1868, when Dallas was a frontier town of just 2,500 people, and members financed their first one-room frame building by selling handwoven rugs, hominy, preserves, and cheese at area fairs. A Victorian-style red-brick section rose in 1890, and the congregation remains the only downtown Dallas church still standing on its original site. Its pulpit gained national renown under George W. Truett, who preached here for 47 years before W. A. Criswell succeeded him in 1944.
Why it matters
The church charts the growth of Dallas from a small frontier settlement into a major city and became one of the most influential Baptist congregations in America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1868 Dallas was a young town on the Trinity River, still recovering from the Civil War and living through Reconstruction. The marker gives its population at about 2,500, a frontier trading town far smaller than the older cities of Galveston, Houston or San Antonio.
That changed quickly. In the early 1870s railroads reached Dallas and made it a crossroads for shipping cotton, grain and goods across North Texas. The population climbed fast and brick buildings replaced frame ones. By the 1890s, when this congregation put up its red-brick building, Dallas had grown into a real city with banks, factories and ambitions to match.
Congregations grew along with it. Churches in frontier towns were more than places of worship. They were community centers, social networks, and often the first institutions a town built. The First Baptist Church started as a small band of believers in a one-room frame building and grew up with the city around it.
People & events
The church's first building, finished in 1871 on this same site, was a simple one-room frame structure. Its members raised money in homespun ways. They wove rugs and made hominy, preserves and cheese, then sold them at fairs around Dallas. Picture church members at a country fair behind jars and wheels of cheese, each sale helping pay for their meeting house.
As Dallas grew, so did the congregation. In 1890 it built a Victorian-style red-brick building, and part of it still stands. Today it is the only church in downtown Dallas still on its original site. Other congregations moved as the business district swallowed their lots. This one stayed while the city grew up around it.
Its best-known era came under George W. Truett, who served as pastor for forty-seven years. He became one of the most famous Baptist preachers in the country, known far outside Texas. In 1944 W. A. Criswell succeeded him and went on to lead the church for decades, becoming a nationally prominent figure among Southern Baptists. Two pastors covered most of the twentieth century here, which is a remarkable stretch of continuity.
Its place in the American story
The First Baptist Church of Dallas follows the arc of the American Sunbelt. It began in a frontier town that sold cheese and preserves to pay for a wooden chapel. It grew into one of the most influential congregations in one of the country's most important cities. That rise tracks the broader rise of Texas and the South in national life over the twentieth century.
Baptists became the largest Protestant family in the South, and influential congregations like this one helped shape it. Through their preaching, writing and leadership in denominational life, its long-serving pastors reached listeners well beyond Dallas. That made this downtown church a force in American religious life, not just local life.
The church's origins also show something widely true of American history. Institutions that later became powerful often started with ordinary people's small sacrifices. The rugs, hominy and cheese in the inscription are a reminder that the foundations of a city were laid by the hands of its earliest residents, one fair booth at a time.
If you visit
Look for the red-brick Victorian building standing among the glass and steel of downtown Dallas. The contrast is striking and tells the church's story at a glance. A building from 1890 stands on the same ground where the 1871 one-room chapel once stood, and the skyline has grown up around both.
Spend a moment on the site itself. Almost every other downtown congregation from the city's early years has moved away, and this one never left. The marker is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark marker, so read it on the spot and imagine a frontier town of just a few thousand people.
It is an easy stop on a walking tour of downtown Dallas history, and you can combine it with the city's other historic sites and museums nearby. The church is still an active congregation, so be considerate during services and events.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · George W. Truett
- · W. A. Criswell
Themes & tags
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